


Kelly's Beach

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Depth on the Bench [6]
Category: Hockey RPF, Original Work
Genre: Childhood summer vacations, Jacks' POV, M/M, New Brunswick, Pining, The Maritimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:04:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9994736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: It's summer, and they're digging for clams.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the "Jacks POV pt 1" listed in the series info, this is a small part of that, that didn't fit the format of that larger work, and so I'm posting it now, separately (still working on the rest of Jacks POV). 
> 
> Luc and Jacks are ~15-16 years old in the first part of this. The second part fits in at the end of Breakaway.

 

It’s summer and they’re digging for clams.  

Luc’s parents rent a cottage in Kouchibouguac every summer for a week or two, and ever since Jacks has known them, they’ve invited Jacks and his mom as well.  Luc’s mom and his mom sit on the deck chairs with books they rarely open and “catch up,” and Luc’s dad brings binoculars and a birding book and tries to drag them all down to look for piping plovers.  It’s all very no-hockey-allowed. No hockey practice.  No hockey reruns through nhlvault. No hockey gear, not even rollerblades and balls for street hockey.  Not even mini-sticks.  Luc throws a monumental fit about it every year, sulks the entire trip down until they actually park at the beach.  Then it takes approximately 15 seconds of sand between his toes and waves lapping at his ankles before he forgets he was pissed.  Jacks brings headphones for the hour and half drive until then.

Luc’s in eye-searing neon yellow swim trunks and a snapback that says _Coastal Wheeling_  because his hideous snapback choices are nothing if not eerily apropos, and they’re sitting on a pier with their cache of clams. Luc has one sandy ankle hooked around Jacks’ where it’s dangling over into the water, and he’s popping the shells open, using a little pocket knife with routine efficiency: making his way through the pile, first one for Jacks, loosened in its shell, which he passes over like a metronome, then one for himself, which he swallows down, then Jacks, then himself, the easy rhythm of it quiet, and soothing, like the rhythm of the waves against their legs.

Jacks used to think it was kind of gross but Luc had scrunched up his nose and said, “what, you want to eat them all weird and fried so they don’t even taste like the ocean anymore?  This is how they’re meant to be eaten. Pretend you’re an otter.” And Jacks had rolled his eyes and gotten over it.  Now, they taste like summer.

“Where’s that huge one you found” he asks, looking at the pile of shells, open and closed, between them.

Luc isn’t blushing, because he doesn’t really blush like Jacks, but his nose and ears look a little pink, so it must be the sun.

“Left’em” he mumbles, suddenly very busy with a shell.

 

Jacks is surprised.  Luc had found the biggest damn clam either of them had ever seen, wider than the spread of Jacks’ hand, fingers stretched wide, almost as wide as two.

“Why do you think he’s so swole, bro?” Luc had asked.

Jacks had shrugged, “I don’t know, don’t clams live like a super long time or something?”

Luc googled it, wiping one hand on his shorts until it was dry enough to work the touch screen of his phone.  “Holy shit, dude, they can live for like 500 years!”

“You should tell your mom” Jacks answered, throwing another clam in the bucket, “she’d be happy you learned a science.”

“Ugh” Luc is still staring at the giant clam, mouthing at the charm of his necklace while he eyes it. “Don’t even.  Papa’’ll try to talk to us about terns again.”

That’d been the last he’d said anything about it, and Jacks had assumed the clam had gone into the bucket, but now Luc’s here, looking squirrely and not-blushing.

 

“You left him?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know, it’s whatever, I guess, but he was so old, like he’d been around so long, like all wise and shit right? He’d seen ...I don’t know, I just hid him out a ways, in the mud.”  He looks distinctly sheepish.  The ocean fills up the silence for the beat of a few long seconds, gulls incapable of doing anything other than squawking, even when others are trying to have a moment.

“It’s dumb” Luc mutters, “I’m being like way soft,” and makes half a movement like he’s almost going to go get up.

“No!” Jacks says, holds Luc in place with the lock of their ankles, a hand on the elbow, “It’s not dumb. It’s cool, he was super old,” Jacks continues, “It’s not dumb, Luc, I think it’s neat. I’m glad you hid him.” Because a Luc that’s had all his soft places calloused over by hockey is one of Jacks’ personal nightmares. Because he remembers when Luc used to cry easily, cried once because they found a dead squirrel, cried when Sidney Crosby had a concussion, when they killed the horse at the end of True Grit, when Jacks broke a finger.  And now Luc doesn’t cry at all, just sets his jaw and walks it off.

“Yeah?”  Luc says, and smiles, hesitant and open and soft, and Jacks loves him.  

It’s easy, most of the time, to forget about wanting.  Luc’s his best friend. They’re around each other all the time. It’s easy to push away desire and forget about the span of Luc's shoulder blades or the valley of his abs, or curve of his mouth.  Like an oyster, those are old irritants, grains of sand long covered in pearl and easily forgotten. But in moments like this, it’s impossible for love to not be fresh, and harsh, an un-ignorable shard of pain and beauty.  Jacks looks at the sun on Luc’s cheeks, and the wind stirring his hair, the smile that’s young and gentle and vulnerable and seen less and less these days instead of a smirk, and thinks “I’m going to wreck myself on you.” And it doesn’t seem like a life-sentence, like the price it sometimes seems he has to pay to have such a brilliant best friend, but a blessing.  Inevitable like the sinking of a ship, unfolding in front of him through time, he knows he’ll love him and love him and love him and love him, and it’ll hurt, but it won’t matter, it’ll be worth it, however hopeless it is.

“Okay” Luc says, and bumps his knees against Jacks’, “hey, later you want to swim for periwinkles? Maman can cook them in that sauce stuff she makes.”

“Sure” Jacks answers and presses his own knee back into Luc’s.  “Hey, give me another clam, I’m hungry.”

“For sure” Luc smiles, and knifes open another shell.

 

 

 

It starts raining the next day before lunch, and they make the best of it, wander around the nearest little town with the fam, look at touristy places. But by the next day, it’s getting tedious. Luc, at home, is used to getting up early, conditioning, training, practicing; he spends hours and hours a day in physical activity, in motion.  Here, there’s no hockey, but there’s swimming, and volley ball, and chasing each other on the beach, and diving for whatever things they feel like foraging out of the sea, and Frisbee.  Luc is ... not good ... with inactivity.

By the first night he’s restless and snippy. By noon the next day he’s basically unbearable.  Snappy, overbearing, anxious, bossy as fuck, and micromanaging the shit out everybody, like a bored sheep dog with no sheep to herd, nipping at everyone’s heels.  

“Luc,” Dr. Luc’s Mom says firmly, “Charlotte and I are very busy, please stop harassing us.”

“You’re just drinking wine” Luc groans, “and you said we were going to walk on the boardwalk thing today, or go on a walk down the point to look at the seals, but instead you're just _sitting here_.”  Both of these were activities that Luc had rolled his eyes at and declared “boring af” when they were suggested days ago, going so far as to tell his mom that “seals just lie there and sleep, it’s super lame, bruh.” But apparently, even seals are more interesting than the walls of the cottage.

“We’re very busy with drinking wine, and we’re not walking to the point right now, it’s _hailing_.  Nobody is going outside. Go read a book.”

 

 

“Why do you always put your mayonnaise on the wrong side of the sandwich” Luc asks over Jacks’ shoulder.

“Just to fucking annoy you.” Jacks chirps, and continues building his masterpiece.

“You know mayonnaise is just egg yolks and- ”

“Seriously, Luc. Go fucking jerk off or something in the shower, for fucks sake.” Jacks says, elbowing him in the ribs.

Luc shoves him back, “I already did that,” bored and whiny, like Jacks had asked him to go brush his teeth.

Jacks grits his teeth, “so go do it again.”

“Ugh” Luc says.  “Oh god, why are you using that kind of lettuce, no, you’re putting it on the wrong -"

“So go call those girls from the beach the other day that are staying a few houses down and see if one of them will let you put your hand up her shorts or something, then.” Jacks interrupts, hip-checking Luc a little more forcefully to get him out of the way so he can reach the cheese.

Luc huffs, “dude. You said neither of them were your type, I’m not going to ditch you for some girls on our vacation and leave you all alone here with The Moms.”

“I’m going to read my book” Jacks says, “fuck off.” but he can't help that he says it with half a smile.

 

Luc does not text the girls a few cottages down. He follows Jacks around like a restless puppy, offers further commentary about mayonnaise, the history thereof, through Jacks’ entire meal, and fidgets his way through two hours of Jacks attempting to read about Cassian Andor.  Jacks puts on headphones.

 

Around 3pm, Jacks can’t take it anymore.  Luc has been bouncing a tennis ball off the wall for the past 25 minutes and its repetitive thud is making him want to kill someone (Luc). The ball is technically Harold the bulldog’s, but Harold is old, and lazy, and much more interested in begging for pieces of cheese downstairs, with, as Luc put it, “the moms.”

Jacks takes his headphones off, puts his book down, and glances at the TSN reruns Luc is half-heartedly watching.   Someone is doing burpees at an NFL training camp.  Jacks sighs, and tells himself that the amount this is going to suck is going to be worth it, in the end.

“How many burpees do you think you can do?” he begins, with a practiced nonchalance.

Luc catches the tennis ball and doesn’t throw it again.  “I don’t know, like 100. 125.”

It’s only through practice and experience that he doesn’t wince.  “I bet I can do 150.”

Luc sits up straight, “I bet I can do 175.”

“I bet I can do 180.”

“I bet I can do…500.” Which is laughable, they’d die, but Luc is pathologically incapable of not escalating a competition, so it’s expected, and at least it gives them something to aim at.  He feels a little like those poor fucking dudes back in the day, like he ought to say “we about to die salute you” or something, but instead he just stands up and says, “yeah okay let’s see it.”

 

 

Later, Jacks is red faced and dying, and his legs feel like they’re made out of cotton candy, and the room is wobbling around him in a distressing fashion, but Luc is sweaty and smiling, shoulders loose on the floor next to him, easy and happy.

“Oh fuck, my legs” Jacks groans, because seriously, fuck his life.

“Bruh, you did really good, that was totally a PR!” Luc grins, earnest and gracious now that he’s finally burned clean of all his energy, and satisfied in his victory.  “I’ll go get us Gatorade.”

 

Jacks lies there in his own sweat until Luc comes back with Gatorade, drinks half of his at once, then drags himself off the floor and back on top of the bed.  Luc flops down right next to him. It’s too hot, really, for him to be laying so close, but Jacks is too tired to argue about it.  “I’m going to finish my book” he says, reaching for where he left it on the dresser.

“’kay” Luc breathes directly into Jacks’ ribs, reaching an arm over Jacks to change the channel.  “I think there’s something about elephant shrews on NatGeo.”

 

 

“’sposed to be sunny tomorrow” Luc yawns, 15 minutes later, out of nowhere, while the elephant shrew is kicking leaves out of its track, and Jacks allows himself to put his hand in Luc’s hair in response.

“Cool, wanna walk down to the point then?”

“For sure” Luc says and then falls asleep.

 

 

**

 

 

Between Ibiza, and Vail, and Tahiti, and Martha’s Vineyard, and Kenora and Santa Cruz, they’ve been travelling all summer really. Luc’s happy to finally be home, if only briefly, at their place in New Brunswick, but Jacks can tell he’s having trouble settling down into the rhythm they normally find here in the summer.

Luc wakes up before 5:30 to go run, and Jacks rolls over in bed and goes back to sleep.  By seven Luc’s back, sweaty and gross and throwing himself across Jacks to wake him up. Jacks groans, and shoves him, and says “you stink” into the pillow, without moving his head.

Luc responds by nudging his cock against Jacks’ ass through the blankets.  It's appealing, but not as appealing as sleep.  “nggggfh” Jacks says.

“You wanna?” Luc asks.

“Too f’king early Chants”

“Jacccckkkkkksssss”

“Not everybody loves morning sex as much as you, asshole, it’s barely even seven. _IN THE SUMMER_.”  The fact that Luc has woken him up enough to make complete sentences feels so tragic.

“The sun’s been up for-”

“Fuck off, Luc”

“I’m _trying_.”

“You can rub off on me but I’m going back to sleep” Jacks grunts, and rolls back over to bury his head in the pillow.

“Jaccccksssssss”

He cracks an eye open.  “Stop doing that thing with your eyes.”

“What thing?” Luc asks, like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

“That thing you do that makes everybody in the world want to suck your dick.”

“Is it working?” Luc asks, unsubtle.

“If you leave me alone for a whole hour, and go shower, and make coffee, I'll blow you in the kitchen.”

 

That gets Luc rolling off him, but not before leaving a big smacking kiss on his cheek, and heading to the shower.  The covers smell like sweat now.

 

In an hour when Jacks drags himself downstairs after his own shower, there’s coffee and oatmeal, done “fancy” with craisins and (almond) milk and cinnamon, and no chalky taste of protein powder, so Luc must really be trying to spoil him.  Jacks pushes him up against the counter and makes good on his promise, but it’s still only eight, and Luc’s still a little restless, like he can’t make himself feel at home in his own house.  He gets the mail and calls some landscapers about a tree that needs to be trimmed or something, and throws the ball for Mako outside for a while, but eventually comes back in and stares at Jacks for a minute, where he’s typing out an email on his laptop, before finally asking, “what do we even normally _do_ here?”

Jacks rolls his eyes. “Fish” he says, gesturing towards the pier behind their house that goes out into the lake.  “Work out. Fuck.”

“Yeah” Luc says, “I mean, those are nice….”

“Your parents want us to come by for dinner tonight.”

“Alright”

 

Jacks studies Luc’s face.  Looks down at where Mako’s gnawing on a tennis ball on the living room floor.  “Hey” he says, “we could drive up to Kelly’s Beach today, teach Mako how to dig for clams. She’s never been before.”

Luc grins, wide, and open and soft, “best plays, Jacks” and kisses him soft, on the lips.

Jacks kisses him back, deep as Luc’s mouth opens for him, and pulls him down with him into the couch.  When he finally pulls away for breath, Luc’s warm and easy looking, the sort of smile he sees more and more these days, and Jacks loves him, big as the ocean, like the inevitable course of time, ever expanding and unstoppable, unfurling into infiniteness, and he knows, he’ll love him, and love him and love him and love him.

It’s a blessing.  

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kelly's Beach is a popular beach at Kouchibouguac National Park. Kouchibouguac is pretty awesome looking place, but it is, interestingly enough, pretty controversial, or at least, used to be. The park was founded in the 1969 to protect some species/ barrier islands, etc, but in forming it they had to displace ~1200 New Brunswick residents who lived on the land. Most of the inhabitants were Acadians, and almost all of them resisted being removed from the land. I guess Canada dealt with it pretty poorly - was pretty patronizing about framing it as a "doing them a favor" by "getting them out of poverty" and "educating them", etc, etc. There was a lot of resistance, trials, forcible evictions, etc. Luc and Jacks really wouldn't know about that, really, except from like...reading the plaques and stuff (which, as teenagers I can't imagine they paid much attention to). Luc is French speaking, but not Acadian, and for all that he considers himself "from New Brunswick" he wasn't born there, his family's not from there, he doesn't have roots or a connection to that type of community, etc. To Luc and Jacks it's just the place they go in the summer. To Luc's dad, it's a place that has some endangered bird species.
> 
> There aren't actually cottages to rent in the park itself that I can see (there are camp grounds, but Jacks' mom is a "I want a real bed and a shower" type person), but we'll say, for the purpose of artistic license that there are some summer rental properties associated, or just outside of the park boundaries, or something. 
> 
> Clams really can live for up to 500 years!!!!
> 
> *inserts random Jay-Z reference about "life is but a beach chair"*


End file.
